If you could will yourself to drive with both hands on the wheel you would never get fined for talking on the phone while driving.
OK, so you can’t express yourself fully without the emphasis of the free hand making a point which makes the officer aware you’re talking on the phone which makes answering the call from your Mother well worth the $210.
Forgotten but not gone:
- Golf club covers. Back just a generation, drivers: 1, 2, 3 & 4 woods, were made of persimmon and they had a fancy finish that owners loved to protect hence the covers. Today’s drivers are made of metal and don’t need the same level of loving care but the covers persist. And they persist down to the putter which, to my mind, has never needed protection of any kind unless, of course, you’re prone to losing it in the pond beside the green.
- Following up on the above, golfers must have a love – hate relationship with covers as they are the article most often left behind.
- Hitting it on the screws, a euphemism for finding the sweet spot on the club started with wooden drivers. The sweet spot was a measure of plastic that was screwed into the heart of the wooden face of the club, hence hitting it on the screws. Not possible today but the expression lives, and oft heard but probably not related when you don’t hit your drive well, “Screw this.”
- As an aside, one of my wooden drivers of long ago dried out with the head flying farther than the ball one day. I recovered the broken pieces which included lead weights to add the required mass. I don’t believe this is where the expression, ‘Get the lead out,’ started.
- Running boards. Our family had a Nash of indeterminate age and it sported a quasi-running board. Research isn’t clear why there were running boards on modern era cars but at one time they were obviously there to add a step to entering the vehicle so one can assume that without them it would have been difficult to get on board, so to speak. Today’s trucks have brought them back so boards are both back out and back in.
No, not our Nash. We had the sports model. 
1936 Cord, first ‘modern’ car without a running board.
In 1976 the federal government added $100 to the price of a car if you ordered the vehicle with air-conditioning. This was the era of punishing owners of ‘gas guzzlers’ and air-conditioning was considered an unnecessary waste of gas hence the tax. There were arguments that air-conditioning actually saved gas but to no avail. Since almost every car today comes with air-conditioning as a standard feature the tax is considered inflationary especially since a ‘gas-guzzling’ electric car also bears this added expense.
I dreamt I ran for the house of commons in the federal parliament on a platform of killing the $100 air-conditioning fee and got elected surprisingly easily seeing as I was up against an opponent who wanted to start an adopt a racoon and/or Canada goose program. Maybe not too surprisingly but you can never figure out those militant nature lovers. Anyhow, on the first day in Ottawa, the whip called me into his chambers and to discuss my $100-no-more program.
“Congratulations on being elected and on such a strong platform, the party’s impressed but the party was wondering, you know, if you’ve thought this through. I appreciate that you did well in the arts and your graduate paper on ‘Latin isn’t just for pharmacists’ is worth a re-read but we’re looking at revenues in the range of $200 million annually. How do you plan to make up this loss?” This was said politely but you felt he saw me as easy pickings; junior member and all.
“Well,” I countered, “since the money didn’t go towards the environment but just got dumped into general revenues, why don’t we just cut $200 million out of the general expenses dump?”
“Any particular expense you had in mind?” he countered my counter with narrowing eyes.
“Well, we’d pick up an easy $20 million cutting the members salaries by 10%,” I innocently offered. Ignoring the whip’s intake of breath, I continued, “I sorta figured that kind of thinking would be a good start and, among other things, probably get me re-elected.”
“This chicken ain’t ready for plucking,” thought the whip, “Ha, ha, love your sense of humour,” followed by a life threatening cough but he soldiered on,
“There’s an opening in the agri ministry studying ways to market the potato beetle to unsuspecting countries who didn’t take Latin, Leptinotarsa decemlineata has that je-ne-sais-quoi sound of some value which you probably already know from your graduate work; or there’s the plum position in the ministry of the environment promoting celibacy in our national parks, any preference?”
That’s when I woke up.
You gotta love ‘free shipping’ when you order on line; what a marketing masterpiece, how to get the customer to buy more than they want.
Let’s say you need to spend $49 to get this bonus. This is typical but it can vary and I’ve see it higher than that. Same principle.
You’ve your heart set on something, a must read book, that comes in at $24.99. Shipping, because you’re below the plimsoll line, adds $8.00. Your total bill for the book you have your heart set on, ‘Derivatives for the sophisticated investor’, is now $32.99 and your calculating mind tells you, ‘If I spend another mere $24.01, I get to save $8.00!” (exclamation point is yours.)
Back to ‘continue shopping’ looking for something that:
- You might read or
- You might unload as a gift
You tell yourself, “I should read ‘War and Peace.’” You ponder a moment then recover, “Would Harold like ‘War and Peace’?” Then a brain wave hits you, “I’ll put it on the bookshelf that people always see in the background when we Zoom.”
“OMG, I see you’ve read ‘War and Peace’, I’m impressed, I’ve always wanted to read that, how was it?”
“A must read, I’ll lend it to you.”
War and Peace adds $34.99 to your bill which now totals $59.98 but hey, you ‘saved’ the shipping and gained a favourable impression.
The bookstore’s computer smiles.
I have never seen, nor do I expect to see in my lifetime, a girl riding a motorcycle with a guy behind as the passenger, riding pillion as the Brits would say.
“Oh, what a terrible flip you took off your bike, here, let me help you, I’m Dr. Janice Wilson, an orthopedic surgeon. Yes, your leg is broken, I passed a hospital 20 kms back, let me help you onto the back of my Harley, hold on to me tightly and I’ll drive you to emergency. You’ve got to get that looked at as soon as possible.”
“Thanks, but that’s OK, I can hop the 20 kms.”
The girl preparing my espresso wasn’t wearing a mask nor protective hand ware. And she gave me my change in bills mostly. My paranoid inner person, once back home, threw the bills in the sink so that both hands and hard earned cash got a scrub.
There’s a myth (maybe not so mythical) that the Chicago mafia back in the ‘20s & ‘30ss bought up laudromats to hide their ill gotten gains.
You ask me do I know Al Capone? We both launder money!